I had no militray service but respect and thank those who do.

Raynine, Congratulations on earning your 4-F rank. God is good.

As a black female who enlisted in the United States Army I have so many stories to tell. I try not to discuss the grueling and even shameful aspects of the physical exams, the yelling, the terrorizing bus ride to basic training, the blood flowing from our arms from the two doses of immunization shots to each arm at once, the... the...the... yea all of it. I try to block it out as I live this civilian life of mine. Thank you so much for posting about your military experience. It was worth reading. God is good.
It sounds like you were too foolish not to jerk your arms when the pneumatic injectors were used to inoculate you. How you survived military service without understanding the process that you went through in Basic is beyond me. None of it is sadism, it is all designed to break you down and rebuild you into a soldier. This basic process goes far back in history probably to the first army ever raised.
 
I enlisted in 1968 shortly after failing out of college, knowing that I would presently be drafted. I took an additional year in order to get the schooling that I wanted. Not surprisingly, my draft notice came to my home while I was at Basic Training at Fort Jackson SC.

I stupidly signed up for a course called, "Stock Control and Accounting," which basically taught how to fill out self-explanatory forms and count rolls of toilet paper. But while I was being processed from Basic, a sergeant in Personnel noticed my aptitude test scores, called me out of the line, and offered me OJT in Personnel in place of the course I was signed for. After a year or so at Ft Lee, VA, I volunteered to go to Vietnam, because I did not want to be a total spectator in the Event that defined my generation.

With my Personnel MOS, I knew that I would be assigned to a Headquarters, and not someplace out in the boondocks. After some bouncing around over there, I was sent to Danang, where I was safe from harm, and the only hardship was long hours (12 x 7), and I was able to save a ton of money by virtue of my tax exemption, hazardous duty pay and overseas pay. Which was nice.

I used the GI Bill to complete my Bachelor's Degree, getting a JD on my own.

The word, "Hero" is almost always used promiscuously in our society. A "hero" is someone who voluntarily risks his life for the protection of strangers, hence EVERY American soldier, sailor, airman, police officer, fire fighter, and other first responders are HERO's, and one should never forget that. It doesn't matter if they are computer programmers in DC or piloting a helicopter in a combat zone. The fact that they SIGNED UP implicitly means that they WERE PREPARED TO sacrifice themselves for the safety and security of Americans.

When I say, "Thank you for your service," it is that implicit heroism that is what I am thankful for.
 
On the subject of "draftees in Vietnam," the subject MUST include at least a mention of Secretary McNamara's martyrs.

When the services were hard up for draftees, SecDef McNamara got the bright idea to LOWER THE MINIMUM SCORE ON THE AFQT, so that they could draft large numbers of dullards, and put them where they could do the least harm.

Working in Personnel in Vietnam, I processed many of these soldiers. They were idiots. Literally. IQ's UNDER 85. They came over mainly as "security guards." Unfortunately, they were uniformly too stupid to take care for their own safety, and more than half of them - all draftees, remember - were killed over there.

Not a pretty picture...nothing to be proud of.
 
Actually, that 25% figure is true, but misleading.
A lot of guys with low lottery numbers didn't want to be drafted into the infantry.
So they went to the local Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, recruiting office before receiving their induction letter in the mail, and joined up into a speciality MOS field.
(mechanic, cook, truck driver, clerk, etc.)

Although, many still went to Vietnam, they were not counted as being drafted.
Which is why that only 25% of Vietnam soldiers were drafted statistic is kinda bogus.

Are you trying to talk about Vietnam Era Soldiers, or Soldiers in Vietnam?

I am talking about the actual soldiers sent to Vietnam. Only 25% of them were draftees. The majority of Draftees served in the US, the rest mostly in Europe.

And no, most who signed up were much more likely to select a technical field, one that had an actual civilian job they could get with their experience. Unless you think cooks and truck drivers were some kind of specialty job. The fact is, of the 4 you listed, 3 of them had schools of under 3 months so were typically given to draftees. Same with "mechanics". They might get the basics in Small Engine Repair, but the real money was in Large Engine Repair or Aviation. Why would somebody volunteer to serve for 4+2 years, and then select a basic MOS?

The difference between knowing, and guessing on your part I assume. I had an uncle who enlisted, and selected Aviation Engine Maintenance. Another uncle was drafted, he became a cook.

And Infantry has rarely had much of a problem getting enough volunteers. In the Marines especially, as that MOS is almost always at capacity in training.
 
Working in Personnel in Vietnam, I processed many of these soldiers. They were idiots. Literally. IQ's UNDER 85. They came over mainly as "security guards." Unfortunately, they were uniformly too stupid to take care for their own safety, and more than half of them - all draftees, remember - were killed over there.

That was officially known as "Project 100,000". or by the USMC as the "Moron Corps". The idea was that many of those selected were believed to have been victims of racism because of living in poverty or lower education. So the military would take 100,000 of them to show the military could improve their lives because of the training and discipline. Plus at the end getting VA benefits.

And many of them were sent to Vietnam. Barely able to perform the duties they were trained for, they would get selected for transfer there because they were of no use to the unit they had been assigned to. And the funny thing is, I have seen the same thing done in the modern era. Oh, not sent to a combat zone as in the modern era that is all done as a unit. But I have seen some so useless in the job they had been trained for that they would eternally be assigned to other jobs. A month of KP, then sent to work for the Regimental/Brigade Sergeant Major for a month doing lawn maintenance. Then return from that, and off they go to spend three weeks remediating the obstacle course for the Air Assault School, or assisting Battalion Supply in inventorying and turning in obsolete equipment.

We might see them 3 or 4 days a month, as they never actually did their "trained and assigned job", because they were worthless at it. So they found other things to do with them until they finished their 4 years and got out. And if the unit does deploy, then those are the ones left in the US as "rear party", as they sure as hell do not want them in a combat theater.
 
I know that carpet bombing entire villages from B-52's loaded with fuck knows what kind of ordnance can have that effect on people.
Why would b-52s bomb villages when there were literally hundreds of military targets to bomb? You have been reading too much fiction. We stayed away from bombing Hanoi because of the population for many years.
 
Lucky you were blind in one eye so you didn't have to serve your Country in the Military? WTF convoluted perspective is that/
 
The fact is, of the 4 you listed, 3 of them had schools of under 3 months so were typically given to draftees. Same with "mechanics". They might get the basics in Small Engine Repair, but the real money was in Large Engine Repair or Aviation. Why would somebody volunteer to serve for 4+2 years, and then select a basic MOS?
I mentioned that guys would sign up as cooks, mechanics, truck drivers, etc. As a way to avoid being drafted into the infantry for the next 2 years.
Guys that had no desire to even be in the Army could sign up for these lower skill MOS's which only required a 2 year commitment.
While all of the higher technical skill jobs required a 3 to 6 year commitment.
 
I mentioned that guys would sign up as cooks, mechanics, truck drivers, etc. As a way to avoid being drafted into the infantry for the next 2 years.
Guys that had no desire to even be in the Army could sign up for these lower skill MOS's which only required a 2 year commitment.
While all of the higher technical skill jobs required a 3 to 6 year commitment.
I believe the general rule of thumb was, any class over 26 weeks required a four-year enlistment. That seemed like a long time when I was 18, so I didn't even consider it. Maybe I shoulda.
 
well, everyday there are men and women fighting in one way or another to secure and maintain our rights here in the USA
 
I mentioned that guys would sign up as cooks, mechanics, truck drivers, etc. As a way to avoid being drafted into the infantry for the next 2 years.
Guys that had no desire to even be in the Army could sign up for these lower skill MOS's which only required a 2 year commitment.
While all of the higher technical skill jobs required a 3 to 6 year commitment.

All draftees served 2 year commitments.

All who volunteered served 4 to 6 year commitments (normally 4+2, or 4 years active duty and 2 years active or inactive reserve).

So why in the hell would somebody volunteer for 4 years, then select a low skill MOS? That makes absolutely no sense. You are already volunteering for 4 years at a minimum, so select a job that has actual skills involved. It was not like the army was having a hard time finding cooks or supply personnel.

But very few were "drafted" into the Infantry. And even if they were, as a draftee serving for only two years, the vast majority spent their time at Fort Ord, or Fort Irwin. Or maybe even Fort Richardson.
 
I believe the general rule of thumb was, any class over 26 weeks required a four-year enlistment. That seemed like a long time when I was 18, so I didn't even consider it. Maybe I shoulda.

It was actually 16 weeks. Because by that time, most soldiers would have already served around 6 months of their 24 month service. Leaving only 18 months of actually "serving" before they get out.

Most draftees were assigned to either OJT jobs, or ones that had a class time of no more than 1-2 months. A lot were trained as Infantry, but were primarily assigned stateside or in Europe as essentially security guards. That is actually a common task for infantry, guarding things like armories, ammo dumps, things like that. And by assigning draftees to Infantry then sending them to guard an ammo dump in Germany, that freed up a volunteer on a 4 year contract to be sent to Vietnam.

Almost the exact same reasoning behind the WAC and other auxiliary programs in WWII for women. Because every female doing a job stateside freed up a man that could do the same job overseas in the war zones.
 
I remember taking an army physical in 1966. Lucky for me, I was born blind in one eye. I say lucky because without that bad eye I would have been on a fast track to Vietnam. I showed up as instructed at a designated business in Keene, New Hampshire at 6 am. There were about 40 buses there loaded with guys that did not have student deferments. There were no females at all. As soon as I got there a uniformed individual started yelling at me to go there and get in line! I followed the person in front of me and did as I was told. I had a piece of paper with some information on it and was told to present it to a giant man in US Army garb.

I was then told to go to a specific bus with a number on it. They packed us in like sardines! No one said much because we were instructed not to talk. It took a while because even in a small city like Keene, the parking lot was completely swamped with crowds of young men who did not have student deferments.

After what seemed like an eternity, the buses started moving in a long procession for the fifty-mile trip to Manchester, New Hampshire. It was December and cold, and the bus windows were translucent with the breath of the riders. This was 1966 and the buses, which were school buses, did not have great heaters.

I can’t recall much about the ride other than recognizing some of my classmates who like me, did not have student deferments. I do remember thinking that maybe I should have tried harder in school so I could have had a student deferment, but it was too late. A guidance councilor told me in school that my IQ was 121-128 and that I was lazy. He told me that because I tried to switch from college English to general English just so I could get through school. He said no, because it would give me an unfair advantage over the kids in General English. I did not tell him about the alcoholic, abusive home I was living in. As bad as things were, there were people who had it even worse, and like I said, I consider myself lucky to have that bad eye because a lot of guys with two good eyes came from homes worse than mine and ended up in the jungle fighting to stop LBJ’s Domino Theory.

We arrived in Manchester at about 7 am and there were about 400 buses everywhere as far as the eye could see. There was a lot of yelling, and I got off my bus with the guy behind me stepping on my heels. It was cold and some of the guys had thin jackets as they lined people up to be herded into one of the buildings. They wanted names and issued color-coded numbered cardboard sheets which took some time. I really began to regret not having that student deferment. As I stood there shivering, I began to wonder if things would have been better if I had done things right and got a student deferment, but that had gone by the boards, and I did not know then that my bad eye was going to help me.

Finally, when we got into a building, more yelling ensued and we were run down chutes for fast, embarrassing physical exams that were strangely dreamlike as if in another dimension. I stayed quiet and moved like a robot. I was 5’5, 120 pounds, and eighteen years old. I tried my best to follow instructions and not be like others that screwed up and were loudly dressed down before the crowd.

Then testing, testing, and more testing! Written tests, reading tests and what looked like psychological and personality tests. They must have fed us, but I do not recall that part. I’m nearly eighty so my memory is not as sharp as it once was. I do recall that a person in a uniform had handed me a folded piece of paper and told me not to lose it. I sneaked a look at it, and it read “I can’t do a thing with this man’s left eye”. The process took all day and right at the end another uniformed person took the paper from my hand, and they sent me into another room to test my eyes again. Then they sent me to an officer who was a Major. It said so on his uniform and it also said he was a medical doctor. He told me that my left eye was bad. I tried to act like I was surprised and did my best to seem disappointed that I may have failed the Army.

I knew what 4-F was and I expected that was what would appear on my draft card. That is not what happened. The doctor said: You have a bad eye, but we can still use you if things go really bad. It was then that I began to think about those German’s during World War two with one arm. The doctor said we are going to classify you 1-Y, a classification that no longer exists by the way. That means you will only climb the lottery if the Russians invade West Germany or something like that. I took it to mean I would make a great one-eyed human shield if things went south quickly.

Well, the Russians never got in tanks and invaded West Germany, and I never got that student deferment that made those that did special in some way. I stayed 1-Y for years and then one day in the 1970’s I got an envelope from the Selective Service after I had three kids. I opened it with trepidation that I was finally drafted. The notice said my classification was changed from 1-Y to 4-F.

I don’t know if I would have been an Eddie Slovik or an Audie Murphy in the Army. My brother did go and he passed a couple of tests that kept him out of Vietnam. In a way I regret not going in because my brother says it changed his life for the better. I do know that I had enough of the Army in that one day. I played in a rock band instead and I have some interesting stories to tell about that another time

I was drafted in 1971. I also had a bad eye, damaged by a injury. I was also 4-F. My plan was to join the Air force. Nope, they wouldn't take me. I sometimes feel guilty because I didn't serve. I wanted to. I did work as a civilian employee of the US Army for a while, though. That's something, but I never wore the uniform or got shot at.
Thanks to all the ones who did serve, I wish I could have joined your ranks.
 
All draftees served 2 year commitments.

So why in the hell would somebody volunteer for 4 years, then select a low skill MOS? That makes absolutely no sense. You are already volunteering for 4 years at a minimum, so select a job that has actual skills involved.
During the Vietnam war the Army offered 2 year sign up for low skill MOS jobs that had a very short training time.

A lot of guys who had a low lottery number and knew they were going to be drafted soon, but didn't want to be an infantry soldier. Would take advantage of the 2 year non infantry option.
 

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